I pay attention to the "bargain basement" area but how 'bout if others post here about good or great deals they run across on media, especially high-quality, dual-layer media ??

Price-wise, Newegg has reasonable prices on these Ritek blanks, http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...82E16817132394. They're not a good price currently ($44.99) but I've seen 'em for $29.99 before. Problems are, 1) they don't appear to be the best quality blanks according to this crowd and 2) they're only 2.4x rated.

For a long time, when I'd shrink DVD movies, I'd aim for 100% or 85% at the lowest. If I couldn't reach that, it was "movie only" for me. Then others kept telling me "you can't tell the difference" and I believed 'em. I've shrinked movies down to 60%. Problem is, I *swear* that I can tell that something doesn't look right (I have a decent Toshiba DVD player and a Toshiba 57" HDTV). I'm at the point now where I want 80-85% min compression. I've even split some movies over two DVDs recently, whereas before I only did it rarely.

hall, just a suggestion... you might want to give DVD Rebuilder a try. Using it along with CCE Basic or the HC encoder will yield very impressive results that I'm sure you'll find above and beyond what you are achieving with DVD Shrink.(a transcoder) Especially recommend this since you're wanting to view your backups on a 57" TV.

Ritek DL is no "hi-quality, dual-layer media"!

Verbatim or Ricoh, that should be your choice.

@the original post, since you live in the US, I would look at BB. 10 packs of D/L Verbatim for $20.99. There is a 10% off BB coupon floating around somewhere as well.

Is that an in-store or online special ?? The Sunday ad had 3-pks of Verbatims for $10.99 but no 10-pks. I'm checking their site right now...

Found 'em. Must be a relatively normal price and all stores near me show them as in-stock (I know that's no guarantee). They're only 2.4x though. Many Verbatim DLs are labeled as up to 6x in some drives.

As far as I know, all Verbatim +R DL's are the same and rated 2.4x but can do 4x, 6x or 8x depending on the drive. I bought some 10 packs recently at BB and I burn them at 8x.

The item # of the Best Buy DL Verbatims is 95166. At Newegg, they've got Verbatims with the same item # and they list them as being 6x (in some drives). Some boxes have a sticker on them mentioning the 6x speeds (at Walmart, for example), while others don't have anything.

Yup, all the Verbatim D/L DVD+Rs that I have seen are 2.4x but they will burn just fine at 4x or 6x in pretty much any burner. Some burners (ie the latest NEC models) will burn them up to 8x. So the write speed rating doesn't mean anything when it comes to D/L Verbatims. My Pioneer 109 with V1.40 firmware burns them perfectly well at 6x. I sure couldn't do that with the Ritek discs.

I'm showing the price of these Verbatims at $34.99.

That price was posted a week or so ago.... It was a sale price. I've bought a 10-pk from Newegg and they're good for 4x in my LiteOn 1635. Haven't used one yet though.

I just burned my first DL last night at 8x on my Benq 1640 using Verbatim DVD+R
DL from walmart late last night works great.